Re: zeta, ksi etc (was: THEORY Ideal system of writing)

On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 07:34:54 -0500, Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...>
wrote:
>> > Also the Greek Zeta, according to one textbook - /dz/
>>
>> No - 'tis the Semitic 'zai' (Hebrew 'zayin'). /dz/ is an widespread
>> convention in reading ancient Greek. The evidence, however, is that it
>> varied in the different dialects between [dd] ~ [zd] ~ [zz], with the
>> latter becoming the norm in the Hellenistic period.
>
> I believe we've discussed this before in the years we've both
> been on the list, but what about <Zeus>, whose <z> comes from a
> palatalized PIE */dy/ in *dyeus? This is not to deny the other
> pronunciations were licit in various dialects, but it seems hard
> not to admit this pronunciation at, at least, a very early,
> perhaps prehistoric, period.
    << From the purely phonetic point of view, [...] the most
straightforward
       reflex of [dy] and [gy] would have been something like [dž] or [dz],
       and such a pronunciation must in fact have been current in some
parts;
       it was with this value that the letter (I) was carried to Italy,
where it
       was used to represent [ts], for example Osc. húrz [horts] 'garden' <
       *xortos.  A development of stop + sibilant to sibilant + stop is not
       unprecedented: in several Slavic languages for example the presence
vs.
       absence of such a metathesis is a distinguishing trait of dialect
groups. >>
            --Sihler, _New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin_, §201

(The (I) there should be the I-shaped zeta glyph.)

	*Muke!
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